Sunday, 22 November 2009

His anxiety in the face of deaththat walks hand in hand through the forest deepwith his anxiety in the face of lifestanding beside the savage innocent the innocuous miragethe invincible ignorance of the boyhis own image in that burning poolhis penchant for destroying everything

Ah, childhood. And it has been my experience that some things do not change, things such as invincible ignorance. Love the image of the burning pool. Had we had a pool when I set the house on fire, I might have seen my image as well.

This has all the weight of a powerful short story, w/ a lyrical insight rarely experienced via prose. The mind is such an amazing instrument: for some reason, I read this, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, the person not his work, keeps coming into my head.

I am thinking, anxiety has no place in life or death. You just live or die and do not waste time thinking about such! Easier said than done, right? *sigh* And yes, I can see clearly how life and death walk hand in hand down the street, along the shore.I am liking this 'The Self-Unseeing' Your mind stirring words.

I was raised Catholic. Catholic dogma, at least back in that benighted century (I haven't kept up), held that those who have had no opportunity to receive God's message -- the wild people of the earth, living outside civilization in a "natural" state -- could not be "saved". They lived in a state of Invincible Ignorance, as it was called. Neither Heaven nor Hell was a possible afterlife destination for them, just Limbo. (A place which, however, was a bit hard for an innocent lad to think of as being too bad, because it had a dance named after it.)

Pinkerbell,

I think this "anxiety in the face of life" is a problem reserved for the especially privileged, like me and you.

Otto,

But I'm sure that when you set the house on fire, you meant well. That's just it. We always do. (Schiele believed such ordeals to be "purgations not punishments".)

Thank you, you are always helpfully reminding me to *dance* when I *sigh*. And 'tis very appropriate advice, as well. And always appreciated. Though I am probably incorrigible.

(BTW, SarahA, as in your presence I cannot lie, it must be disclosed here that I have borrowed the title of this one, though nothing much else in or about it, from a bitter, melancholy little Thomas Hardy poem of self-reproach regarding missed opportunities in a lost past -- one of my favourite poems, as it happens.)

thanks for explaining the background for these words... so the ignorance was from those who were teaching, eh?:)

unfortunately religions have caused lots of fear and anxiety in people's souls...

and now i should say i love and respect you even more, dear friend... getting rid of dogamas is not an easy task... i just think of the journey you had to become this poet you are now... with your human and cosmic viewpoint...think the double usage of the word Limbo was a great help, eh?:D

You know it's funny (and a bit scary too) how wide the field of possible implication may be here... it took me a few days, after writing this, to realize that. And indeed it took a few others and then you to help me to the realization. I suppose the invincibly ignorant boy will always be the last to know. (And of course you're right about the invisible last line, one did not want to put a fine point on it, the news was getting bad enough already...)